Hypertension (elevated blood pressure) is a common health problem and often a devastating disease. In addition to being one of the most important risk factors in both coronary heart disease and cerebrovascular accidents, hypertension may also lead to cardiac hypertrophy with heart failure, aortic dissection, and renal failure. Although several drugs have been developed to reverse the harmful effects of hypertension, and to lower blood pressure in patients, the pharmacology of hypertension remains poorly understood. Furthermore, a wide variety of drug classes targeting different biochemical pathways thought to be involved in hypertension further complicate the ability of physicians to match the right drug with the right patient. For example, individual patients often vary widely in their response to different types of antihypertensive drugs. See Samani, Clinical Science, 99:231–232 (2000). One illustration of this is the poor response of black patients to a class of drugs known as angiotensin converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors compared with that of Caucasians. Additionally, even individual responses to antihypertensive drugs within a relatively homogenous group vary a great deal. See Dickerson et al., Lancet, 353:2008–2013 (1999).
At present, clinical and/or biochemical parameters providing a useful guide to how well a hypertensive patient will respond to drug treatment are non-existent. Thus, patients are either left with inadequate treatment, or are rotated through different classes of antihypertensive drugs, both of which come at a great cost in terms of individual health, and health care. See Dickerson et al., Lancet, 353:2008–2013 (1999); Samani, Clinical Science, 99:231–232 (2000).
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide simple and effective methods for determining the most effective drug for a particular patient among the various different classes of antihypertensive drugs.